Sans-Sundays

Merry Christmas everyone…Set to gain branding: TrawsCymru livery on the Cardigan-Aberystwyth serviceUnfortunately, I’ve nothing in the spirit of Christmas cheer to post, and haven’t time to cover a full story right now. A few months ago, an ITT (Invitation To Tender) was published for a new TrawsCymru service, the T5, to replace part of the current X50 service between Cardigan and Aberystwyth as well as the 412 service between Cardigan and Haverfordwest, creating a through service between Aberystwyth and Haverfordwest. There are all sorts of reasons why this is a bad idea, which I hope to detail soon, but for now I just want to focus on one issue. The Sunday service.

In the ITT, there were to be three journeys in each direction between Cardigan and Haverfordwest on Sundays, and two between Aberystwyth and Cardigan via New Quay and Aberporth. One journey southbound would be a through Aberystwyth-Haverfordwest service, and two of the northbound journeys would also have run the full distance. This would have required two vehicles, with a third working an evening trip from Aberystwyth to Synod Inn and back, via New Quay. This service would have been a rather scant one, but still alot better than nothing which is what we have at the moment. Unfortunately, the T5 timetable has now been published, and even the planned scant Sunday service has failed to materialise. Sundays will conntinue to be devoid of public transport in New Quay. Cardigan, Newport and Fishguard will also have no buses or Sundays, except for the Poppit Rocket coastal bus (which only operates on Sundays during the summer holiday season, the rest of the year it only operates Thursdays and Saturdays).